This circus marks an end to politics played out in the shadow of terror

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2225813,00.html

This circus marks an end to politics played out in the shadow of terror


The noisy, confusing US presidential campaign marks a focus on serious questions and one that transcends partisan lines

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday December 12, 2007
The Guardian

Nineteen sixty-eight was a vintage year, as was 1992. And, I confidently predict, 2008 will be one too. I am not speaking of fine bottles of Chateau Lafite but rather US presidential politics. The campaign that will culminate on November 4 is already shaping up as a classic, replete with the requisite elements of a cracking contest: a gaggle of intriguing candidates with complicated histories, volatility in the electorate, and an unpredictable result. And up for grabs is the leadership of the world's sole superpower. The stakes could not be higher - for Americans and for everyone else.

The battle for 2008 was always going to be open, with no incumbent on either side. But there was a time when the two parties' choices seemed easy to guess: an aura of inevitability wreathed itself around Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani. That would have been a slugfest to savour, a New York derby pitting two scarred bruisers with a talent for doling out and absorbing punishment. Now both those frontrunners, while still narrowly ahead in polls, are stumbling, watching the momentum flow towards their rivals - especially in make-or-break Iowa and New Hampshire, which vote next month. As Barack Obama surges among Democrats in Iowa, it is becoming possible to imagine 2008 as the first US election since 1976 without either a Clinton or Bush. Suddenly, nothing is predictable.

Already some weirdnesses are clear. The two candidates who polls rate as the most electable for their respective parties are lagging behind. Surveys show John Edwards beating every Republican on offer, yet Democrats rank him behind Clinton and Obama. John McCain is the only Republican who polls ahead of the three leading Democrats in a match-up, yet he is stuck in fourth place.

Stranger still, the main candidates are deeply flawed. Obama is young and inexperienced; Edwards, with his $400 haircuts, has an authenticity problem; Hillary is seen as establishment and robotic. Among the Republicans, McCain, at 70, is old and an advocate of an unpopular war in Iraq. Giuliani's liberal stance on guns, gays and abortion - and a Technicolor personal life that has seen him defending the taxpayer-funded security detail that protected his lover when he was the married mayor of New York - have alienated him from the family-values voters who can decide Republican contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mitt Romney has the big hair and dazzling smile of a Hollywood president. Trouble is, he's a Mormon seeking the votes of evangelicals who refuse to recognise him as a Christian. TV actor and former senator Fred Thompson is such a lethargic campaigner, he's in single digits.

Which leaves Mike Huckabee, the new and entirely unexpected star of the 2008 campaign. His warm, folksy, fluency has drawn comparisons with Bill Clinton: like Clinton, he was born in a town called Hope and served as a popular Arkansas governor. Unlike Clinton, he's a Baptist preacher who does not believe in evolution and suggested in 1992 that people living with Aids should be quarantined. He's so clueless on foreign affairs, he hadn't even heard of last week's intelligence report on Iran's non-bomb - 24 hours after it had been on every TV news bulletin and front page. He may well win in Iowa on January 3 and he's currently tied with Giuliani in national polls of Republicans.

Against that Republican crop is a Democratic trio with just a few years in the Senate between them and the not-quite-experience of eight years as first lady. As one Republican commentator puts it: "What happens if both parties nominate a candidate who can't win?"

All this is great fun as spectator sport. But for those watching in Britain, especially in our governing circles, there are some important lessons to learn too. The first, grim for Gordon Brown, is that wit and warmth matter enormously in today's politics. Huckabee's rise can be explained almost entirely by his easy manner. Both he and Obama deploy a weapon that could protect Brown under fire if only he could acquire it: humour.

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